All Ye Who Enter Here
by Gailstorm
Summary: In which Albion is a college not a geographical location, Arthur fears that Camelot may collapse any day now, and Merlin has a knack for being in the right place at the wrong time. AU
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin. This is for my own amusement.

* * *

"King" Arthur's court is nothing more than the outside eating area connected to the old cafeteria, a building that should have been torn down years ago. The reason it still stands, or that he is allowed free reign of it is subject to much rumor. Most people are of the opinion that Arthur has the Dean of the college under his thumb, due to family connections. Others (approximately 1% of the student population) believe that his Jedi mind powers (which he obviously must have) combined with his overwhelming charisma have effectively hidden that area from view. However, the simple truth of the matter is that it would cost money to tear the place down or to renovate… money that no one wants to spend. Also, the dean of the college does not care _what_ Arthur does in the old building as long as nobody dies.

Arthur likes this particular spot because back in the college's hey-day, when his father was in attendance (before **The Event**), it was THE place to be. His dad had renamed the cafeteria Camelot and it was the life of the campus. Uther, out of boredom and the school's real need for some sort of unofficial remediation, set up shop as a kind of lunchtime judge. Students came to him with their problems, he sorted them out, and everyone else came to watch. As his popularity grew, so did the weight of his words till eventually they became law. If ever a man ruled a school, then that man was probably Uther Pendragon.

Those days ended around the time that Arthur was born and the college, Albion, is now a ghost of what it once was. Arthur has small dreams of restoring its former glory and maybe even becoming a bigger legend than his father, but mostly he hangs out there (in Camelot) with his friends because it is quiet and no one bothers them there.

This changes when Merlin (and with a name like that, it has to be Destiny) literally crashes into his life. It was quite painful, really…

* * *

Next Chapter: A Momentous Occasion

In which **The Event** is explained or In which everyone, except Arthur, wants something from Merlin… and Merlin just wants to go home-


	2. A Momentous Occasion

Disclaimer: I do not own the show Merlin.

Albion was not Merlin's first school of choice, nor was it his second. If pressed, it might have been his twenty-third. However, it was to Albion he went, regardless of the fact that people of his persuasion were not welcome there. One of the more dramatic decisions made in the aftermath of The Event(1) was that Albion, previously a school noted for its liberal attitudes, refused to admit or employ those who were Changed. Note: Many other businesses and institutions adopted the same policy, but Albion was the first to do so. On top of all his other fears concerning his freshman year at college, he also had to worry about someone finding out that he wasn't quite normal.

While the penalty for lying about being Changed wasn't life threatening, it wasn't something that was easily forgiven either. At best, the college could choose to sue him (which his family couldn't possibly afford) and at worst, they could get the police involved. Depending on what they charged him with, Merlin might wind up doing time in prison or getting his name put on the registered list of Changed, both of which had life altering consequences. The night before he left for school, he dreamt of prison cells and dungeons, and penguins… but those were dreams for you.

Hunith, his mother, was the main driving force behind the whole going-to-college business. She wanted many great things for her son and not one of them could he get by staying home and working at some small town job, no matter what kind of unique abilities he possessed. So, she scrimped and saved and proudly managed to send Merlin to one of the finest organizations of higher learning in the nation. It was risky and he'd have to be very careful, but it would be well worth it. Coincidently, Albion was only three hours away so he'd be able to come home on the weekends…if he wanted to.

Another factor that ultimately decided his fate was that Hunith was old friends with a professor at Albion. His name was Gaius, he taught organic chemistry and had generously offered to let Merlin live with him in exchange for helping with various chores and running errands for him. Not having to pay for room and board made his first semester that much more affordable and brought an end to the last of his monetary arguments against going to school.

In the end, he went off to college because it would make his mother happy and because deep down it was something that he knew he had to do.

* * *

All of this resulted in him spending his last Sunday afternoon before college started being pursued by a boy who was regrettably covered in what he hoped was just water. In Merlin's defense, it wasn't _totally_ his fault. No, he blamed the boy whose aura had temporarily blinded him. Most people's auras are like thin layers of color that surround them. Not so with this boy's. It blazed all golden and brilliant as if to say, "Hello! I am amazing! Feel free to bow down before me, I won't mind a bit."

It was horribly distracting, which is what caused him to trip over a wicked crack in the pavement and send the contents of the bucket he was carrying all over the person who had the misfortune of sharing the sidewalk with him.

"Look, I _am_ sorry." He sank to the ground and waved his arms in defeat.

He'd been chased past the abandoned cafeteria, down a narrow street that separated two dormitories, and finally onto an empty tennis court. It was there that he had to stop and catch his breath.

The boy glared and said, "I'm sure you are."

"It was just an accident. I'll get you a new shirt… and for what it's worth I'm very probably sure that it was just plain old water." He smiled in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

"Wait, what?" The stranger went from irritated to irritated and confused, not a good combination.

"The stuff you're covered in." Merlin explained, "It's perfectly safe, I'm certain."

His would-be assailant froze. "What was in the bucket?"

"I don't know exactly, but I was helping Gaius clean up after one of his experiments."

"Gaius? The chemistry professor?" The boy questioned.

"Yes, that's the one." His breath had returned and he was contemplating getting back to his feet.

"So, not only did you douse me with cold water for no apparent reason, but that water may or may not have contained toxic chemicals?" His voice was like ice, cold and terribly unforgiving.

"No. Gaius would never ask me to dispose of toxic chemicals improperly. He's a _teacher_. "Merlin replied feeling affronted. "Besides, I didn't do it on purpose. I tripped."

"Right." The boy clearly didn't believe him, judging by the look on his face. "What's your name?"

"Merlin"

"Well then, Merlin, you'd better hope that you never run into me again if this stuff…" He sniffed "which stinks by the way, causes me irreparable damage."

He stood up. "And your name is?"

"Why?" He narrowed his eyes.

"It will be hard for me to avoid you like the plague, in the future, if I don't even know your name."

"You have a point. It's Arthur."

Merlin nodded and moved to shake his hand, thinking that maybe they could put all this behind them. Arthur stared at him until he awkwardly let his hand drop and then said "I've got to take a shower." He turned and walked off the tennis court in the direction of one of the dormitories. Merlin sighed, remembering that Gaius most likely needed his bucket back and he had no idea where he'd dropped it. He tried to cheer himself up by thinking that he'd never see Arthur again and went searching for it.

* * *

(1)The Event: A phenomenon that should have been given a better name. Mr. Gerald Erbin, a scientist, was to blame for informing the media as to the true cause of what he dubbed "The Event" wasn't very imaginative when it came to naming things. He'd sold his story to the highest bidder for two million dollars. Up until that point, the government had almost succeeded in convincing the general public that the Changes were just another unfortunate byproduct of Mad Cow Disease. In retrospect, he probably should have spent his earnings on the best security detail money could buy instead of on an extremely rare Superman comic book (vintage 1938) because he was found dead in his home nearly a day after the news officially broke.

His story was this: The Event had no discernible cause, at least not one that the scientific community could come up with. On the morning of June 1st, 19XX, thousands of people all over the world woke up different than they had been when they went to sleep and no one knew why.

Some were lucky in that their powers were small or easily concealable. Others were not, as is the story of one young man who suddenly gained the ability to glow bright blue in the presence of spoken lies. One of the only things that scientists had figured out was that those who were Changed could pass their abilities on to their offspring. Such is the case with Merlin, whose father was one of the Changed.

Next Chapter: In which Merlin meets The Dragon.


	3. Dragon

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin. This is for my own amusement.

* * *

Merlin knocked on the door of a room (oddly labeled MISC.) and wondered why Gaius thought that meeting a man with the dubious name of Dragon would be beneficial to him.

He knocked again and whispered, "Hello?" The door stayed shut.

It was really late and he was pretty sure that not even being on official business for Gaius would save him from getting in trouble if he were discovered down here. Perhaps, if he were upstairs in one of Old Main's many study rooms, he'd have a better chance of believably explaining why he was still in the building at nearly one o'clock in the morning. Instead, he was standing in the almost pitch black dark of the basement with nothing but a penlight and a growing sense of unease that at any moment he would be happened upon by a campus security guard.

"Dragon?"

He knocked a bit louder this time feeling like he'd suddenly become part of a cheesy spy thriller. In clandestine meetings in the dark and persons with silly code names were earmarks of that sort of flick weren't they?

Merlin decided that enough was enough and turned to leave. Gaius would simply have to wait for whatever item he was picking up for him until a more reasonable hour. His slow progression (it is hard to navigate unfamiliar places with only a tiny light to see by) towards the staircase leading out of the basement was stopped by the creaking of a door handle.

"Hello, young Emrys."

He spun around and winced at the harsh light emanating from the now open room. After blinking a few times to adjust to the brightness, he noticed a grizzled old man staring at him from the doorway. He was taller than Merlin by a good seven inches and wore huge coke bottle glasses that covered half his face.

"I've …" was all he could say before being interrupted.

"I've heard such wonderful things about you." The old man grinned or leered… it was hard to tell.

"Um. That's nice." This surprised him in that he considered his ability to be the only wonderful thing about him, and Gaius had sworn them both to secrecy. Also, it warmed him a little to know that the professor spoke of him so favorably to other people.

"I have what you came for."

He went back inside and motioned for Merlin to follow him. The room was bigger than it looked from the outside and was filled with rows and rows of shelves as well as a cot jammed into a corner. On the shelves were bottles of various shapes, sizes, and colors, books, and what might have been a long abandoned plate of food. His examination of the room was cut short by the tap of a finger on his shoulder. He hadn't heard the man approach and found it slightly unnerving that he could move so quietly.

"Here" Dragon dropped a small blue bottle, which felt strangely cool to the touch, into his hands. Merlin carefully tucked it into his pocket.

"Your eyes are yellow!" Which was not the 'thank you' he'd intended to say. He'd gotten a glimpse of luminous orangey yellow eyes from behind the man's rather thick lenses and the words had come out on their own.

"Ah" was his reply. He shook his head and his eyes went back to the pale, washed out blue they'd been a few seconds ago.

The reason Gaius sent him on this errand became clear. He was not the only Changed in Albion. A feeling of excitement ran through him as now there was someone else he could talk to about how amazing, weird, and sometimes scary it could be to do what others couldn't.

"I won't tell anyone." he promised earnestly. However, he didn't seem all that concerned that Merlin would leak his secret.

"So, how are you two? Getting along?"

The question threw him for a moment, as he'd expected for Dragon to say something about his ability or maybe what he was doing at this particular school.

"Oh, Gaius and I are fine. He probably wishes I'd keep my room a little neater, but other than that we get along well." He smiled.

"Not Gaius, young Pendragon."

His smile fell as confusion set in. "Pendragon?"

"Yes, _Pendragon_." He said this in an exasperated manner as if he were talking to someone quite dumb. "You two go together like peanut butter and jelly, after all. There are big things in store for you." The man's expression changed from one of annoyance to fond remembrance.

By this point, Merlin was sure that whatever Change the man had gone through it had also, and unfortunately, damaged his brain. He wanted no part of this sandwich analogy.

"Look, sir, I don't mean to put a damper on your plans but I don't even _know_ anyone named Pendragon."

"You haven't met Arthur, yet?" The man looked at him sharply, his eyes glowing an eerie yellow for the second time that night.

"Arthur?" He repeated. The name rang a bell. He chewed on his lip for a minute before it struck him. "You can't mean _him_. I threw water on him. He definitely isn't peanut butter. "

"So you do know him."

"Yes, but we aren't friends. I'm currently avoiding him as per his instructions."

Dragon gave him a smug look. "You'll meet again soon. There's no escaping it."

And he was right.

* * *

Next Chapter: In which Arthur and Biology are not friends.

Author's note: Yes, this is a short chapter. In my defense, I was taken captive by this horrible thing called school and was forced to take finals. Also, I got the first season box set of Merlin for my birthday on Sunday….and I've been a bit distracted. XD

I'm already working on the next chapter, so hopefully I will have it out soon.


End file.
